By Jihoon Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean shares fell for a second straight session on Monday, with trading curbs activated for the first time in four years, as risk appetite dampened across global financial markets on U.S. recession fears.
The benchmark fell as much as 7% in afternoon trade, after dropping 3.7% on Friday, and was set to post its worst session since March 2020.
The fall, which triggered a sidecar trading curb on the KOSPI for the first time since 2020, was in line with the broader Asian market’s weakness, with the MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan Index down 2.5% and falling 6.9%.
Sidecar was also activated on the junior KOSDAQ index, which was down 7.1% as of 0425 GMT.
A sidecar is activated when index futures fall or rise sharply and halts programme trading for five minutes to curb steep price movements.
Chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics (KS:) and SK Hynix dropped more than 8%, tracking steep declines in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which had driven Wall Street’s rally on optimism around artificial intelligence.
The KOSPI was down 13% from a six-month peak of 2,860.42 hit in July.
“The market has entered territory of extreme fear amid a slump in U.S. big tech stocks, worries about a slowing U.S. economy and sharp declines in Asian markets,” said Kim Dae-jun, analyst, Korea Investment Securities.
Earlier in the day, South Korean authorities issued several comments to calm investor sentiment, with the finance minister vowing to respond to heightened market volatility according to a contingency plan.
The U.S. stock futures fell more than 1% in Asian trading hours on Monday, after a heavy sell-off last Friday that confirmed the Nasdaq was in correction territory.
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to near a three-year high, data showed on Friday, heightening fears the labour market was deteriorating and potentially making the economy vulnerable to recession.
The South Korean won weakened on Monday, after hitting a more than two-month high of 1,356.0 per dollar on Friday, as foreigners sold local stocks worth more than 1.3 trillion won ($958.41 million).
($1 = 1,356.4200 won)